Winelands Toll Roads will devastate the agricultural sector
20 April 2015
The Winelands Tolling Project proposed by SANRAL for the Western Cape will not only destroy jobs in the farming sector, but also increase costs for farmers, and impact on the movement of thousands of farmworkers. This will be devastating for the poorest of the poor, especially the residents of Wallacedene, who are employed on farms in the Joostenbergvlakte area.
Following the release of reports made secret by SANRAL, I have scrutinised the documents indicating that residents of the Western Cape will have to pay three times more than Gauteng residents to drive on N1 and N2 in the Winelands. My further investigation to the effect on the farming sector, key to rural Western Cape, reveals that the Winelands Toll Roads project will have a devastating effect on the adjacent farming sector.
In line with the National Development Plan, the farming sector is crucial to the region’s job creation, and the DA-led Western Cape government recognises that agriculture can create more than 100 000 new jobs in the province. These jobs will go to the rural poor, who need it most. The toll roads will also result in a reduction of cash flow for the fruit growers in the Elgin and Hex River Valley, who already struggle financially. Any further financial hardship experienced by these farmers in the fruit export industry, may result in future unemployment among farmworkers.
The implication of these toll roads, impacts on the mobility of farmworkers, making it difficult for them to access essential services, to maintain social contact with their families and limits movement of thousands of seasonal farmworkers.
The consequences of the plans for the Winelands Toll Roads will be an enormous burden on the poorest of the poor and must be stopped. I intend to do whatever I can to prevent SANRAL from destroying jobs, and hampering ease of movement for farm workers.
Statement issued by Beverley Schäfer, DA Western Cape Spokesperson on Agriculture, April 20 2015
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